Colin Kaepernick Disappears If He’s Employed

As we continue the long summer of Colin Kaepernick’s football unemployment and MSESPN employees — joined by their left wing sports media allies at FS1, NBC, and CBS — continue to hold candlelight vigils outside ESPN offices every night begging for him to get a job — I’ve got an interesting question for you — isn’t Colin Kaepernick more relevant if he never gets signed by an NFL team than if he does? In fact, isn’t this the only way that Colin Kaepernick stays relevant at all?

Think about it — if Kaepernick is signed by an NFL team then he becomes one of roughly 90 quarterbacks on an NFL training camp roster. If he makes the team and dresses every week for games he’s one of 64 or so active quarterbacks every week in the NFL. Assuming he isn’t starting on a good team, an initial rush of media attention on Kaepernick will quickly subside in favor of more interesting NFL stories about actual teams and players that matter. (Stop with your “No one cares about Kaepernick,” Tweets too. I see the site traffic and the ratings. Despite what you guys say, the general public is obsessed with Kaepernick. The moment I publish this article the site will be flooded with traffic.)

Given the fact that Kaepernick has said he will stop protesting the national anthem this year, what story is left to tell about Kaepernick? Unless he’s on the field, nothing. Kaepernick would, like most back-up quarterbacks in the league, just vanish into football oblivion. If the NFL wants this story to be over, the best thing that can happen for the league is for an owner to sign him to a roster and pay him for another year of football.

Right now Kaepernick is all the rage for the left wing sports media, Che Guevara in cleats, but the moment he gets paid for football and stops his protest doesn’t this just make Kaepernick a total sell out? Because then he’s a guy who will take money from rich white owners and shut his mouth in exchange for receiving that money. Isn’t that exactly what his girlfriend accused Ray Lewis of doing when she called Lewis an Uncle Tom last week? According to her own logic, her boyfriend would just be another Uncle Tom.

The simple truth is this : if NFL teams really want to make Kaepernick powerless all they have to do is pay him a few million dollars and let him hold a clipboard silently on the sideline. Then the protests in his favor vanish overnight. Sure, reporters will still breathlessly cover Kaepernick and ask his opinion on social issues, but Kap isn’t well spoken, insightful or incisive on any political issue. In his limited interaction with media last year he managed to endorse communist dictator Fidel Castro’s leadership of Cuba, say he believed Hillary Clinton should be in prison, admit he refused to vote for President because his vote didn’t matter, and generally behaved like what he is — a poorly informed social justice warrior active on Twitter but lacking in substance.

The more Kaepernick talked, the less he mattered. That’s why he doesn’t talk now, he just Tweets out memes. Last year Kaepernick protested police killing of unarmed black people by taking a knee on the football field during the national anthem. (There have been eight unarmed black people shot and killed this year in the entire country. By the way, there have been 13 unarmed white people killed and seven Hispanic people killed. Just to be clear, I hate death more than all of you, but that’s less unarmed people shot and killed by police than have been killed by lightning.) Kaepernick’s protest occurred while the United States president was Barack Obama — who publicly supported Kap’s protest — and the head of the justice department was Loretta Lynch, a black women ensuring that the federal government was already aggressively investigating all of these police shootings. How radical is a protest when the president and the attorney general both support your cause and are already doing what you want them to do? Muhammad Ali went to prison for his protest, Kap’s was endorsed by the president and the head of the justice department.

Even wilder, Kaepernick agreed to stop his protest after Donald Trump got elected and Jeff Sessions became attorney general. Leaving aside the fact that the federal government was already doing exactly what Kaepernick wanted when he started his protest — Kap’s the equivalent of a guy who showed up at McDonald’s demanding breakfast be served all day, took a knee, and then found out that breakfast was already being served all day — he actually stopped his protest after helping to elect a guy who believed his protest was total crap. Indeed, given the fact that Donald Trump won the election by only 101,688 total votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — less than watch a single football game in The Big House, the Shoe, or Happy Valley on a football Saturday — is it unreasonable to believe that around 51,000 football fans might have switched their votes from Clinton to Trump because of Kap’s protest and the resulting media coverage? I don’t think so. And if you believe that 51,000 football fans in the Big Ten states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could have changed their votes over this issue — as I do — then there’s the potential that Colin Kaepernick’s protest cost Hillary Clinton the election.

Which is amazing to think about when you consider how lacking in substance Kaepernick’s political stances actually are. He’s an empty vessel that social justice warriors have poured their own beliefs into, the quarterback who believes exactly what they do. Even if, you know, Kap lacks any coherent political philosophy. This is why Kaepernick only communicates via social media memes, because when he’s asked to explain his positions on political issues he’s an empty uniform.

The only way Colin Kaepernick’s story lasts through another football season is if he’s an unemployed football martyr for the left wing, an outspoken activist whose protest was so controversial it rendered him unemployable, the man who gave up millions to make the world a better place.

Colin Kaepernick only matters is if he’s unemployed. The moment an NFL team signs him, he becomes irrelevant, just another guy with a clipboard on the sideline. Worse than that, he becomes a sell out, a guy who gave up his moral authority in exchange for cash. The moment an NFL team signs Colin Kaepernick, his power vanishes, he’s a non-story, he’s just another guy who doesn’t play the game where only the players matter. Far from the NFL blackballing him or engaging in a conspiracy to ensure he’s unemployed, the league’s best option here is clear — pay Colin Kaepernick to play football and he vanishes overnight. The only reason Kaepernick is relevant is because he doesn’t have a job.

If the NFL really wants Colin Kaepernick to disappear, all they have to do is pay him to play football.